1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to medical devices and methods. More specifically, the invention relates to devices and methods for activating the baroreflex system to treat or reduce pain control and/or to cause or enhance sedation or sleep.
Pain is one of the oldest and least understood medical mysteries. Pain is defined by the Merriman-Webster Dictionary as: (1) localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder, such as a disease or injury; or (2) a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action. As these definitions suggest, ordinary pain is typically beneficial, in that it serves as a warning mechanism to indicate potential tissue damage. There are times, however, when it is desirable to alleviate acute pain, such as during a surgical procedure or after a trauma. Additionally, a variety of chronic pain conditions have been discovered, in which a stimulus and the pain response are not related; i.e., the pain does not serve a physiologically protective purpose and may be out of proportion with the stimulus.
It has been estimated that 10-20% of the adult population suffers from chronic pain. Chronic pathologic lesions, neurodegenerative processes, or prolonged dysfunction of parts of the peripheral or central nervous system can cause chronic pain. Chronic pain may be described as pain which persists beyond the normal healing time for a disease or injury, pain related to chronic degenerative disease or a persistent neurologic condition, pain that emerges or persists without an identifiable cause, or pain associated with cancer.
Treatment of chronic pain typically begins with prescription of non-opioid analgesics and progresses from moderate to potent opiate analgesics. If medications fail to treat the pain, more invasive techniques such as nerve stimulation, nerve ablation or even surgery are often prescribed. Although some currently available methods and devices may help to alleviate chronic pain, they often do so only partially and/or temporarily, and many treatments are burdened with significant side effects. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), for example, may produce gastrointestinal disturbances, ulceration, renal damage, and hypersensitivity reactions. Opiate side effects include sedation, cognitive impairment, myoclonus, addiction, tolerance, respiratory depression, nausea, constipation, confusion, respiratory depression, and dependence. Nerve ablation permanently damages one or more nerves and may cause unwanted nerve damage. Surgical procedures, especially on nervous system structures such as the spinal cord, obviously have inherent risks.
In addition, current treatments are simply unable to relieve pain in many clinically severe chronic pain disorders, such as diabetic neuropathy, cervical radiculopathy, neuralgic amyotrophy, HIV neuropathy, neuralgic amyotrophy, fibromyalgia syndrome, or post herpetic neuralgia. Other chronic conditions intractable to current medical strategies are associated with both peripheral and/or central pain such as, post spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, trigeminal neuralgia, phantom limb pain, and diabetic and alcoholic polyneuropathies.
In treating either chronic or acute pain, it is often desirable to provide sedation and/or to help improve or induce sleep along with pain management. Although sedation and/or sleep may often play an important part in treating or at least reducing pain, it can be difficult to balance medications and other therapies to treat pain and also provide sedation or induce sleep simultaneously. Of course, it is often desirable to cause or enhance sedation or sleep outside the context of pain control, such as to provide an anti-anxiety effect, to help treat insomnia, and the like.
Rau et al., in Biological Psychology 57 (2001)179-201, reviewed several animal and human studies showing that baroreceptor activation may decrease pain perception. That article also cites early studies that have shown baroreceptor activation to cause sedation. Traditional experimental devices and methods for activating baroreceptors, however, are impractical for therapeutic use, especially long-term use. Such devices and methods include using cumbersome externally applied devices, such as a pressurized neck cuff or lateral neck suction devices, injection of pharmacological agents, and respiration techniques to affect blood pressure, such as the Valsalva maneuver. In general, these and other currently available methods and devices would not be practical for long-term or even short-term pain control, sedation or sleep enhancement in a patient.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide improved devices and methods for treating, reducing and/or controlling pain and/or for causing or enhancing sedation or sleep. Ideally, such devices and methods would be minimally invasive and would be adaptable for treating either chronic or acute pain, with few if any significant side effects. It would also be ideal for such devices and methods to provide or enhance sedation or sleep, either along with or independent of treating pain. At least some of these objectives will be met by the present invention.
2. Description of the Background Art
Rau et al. (2001) Biological Psychology 57:179-201 describes animal and human experiments involving baroreceptor stimulation. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,073,048 and 6,178,349, each having a common inventor with the present application, describe the stimulation of nerves to regulate the heart, vasculature, and other body systems. U.S. Pat. No. 6,522,926, assigned to the assignee of the present application, describes activation of baroreceptors by multiple modalities. Nerve stimulation for other purposes is described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,292,695 B1 and 5,700,282. Publications which describe the existence of baroreceptors and/or related receptors in the venous vasculature and atria include Goldberger et al. (1999) J. Neuro. Meth. 91:109-114; Kostreva and Pontus (1993) Am. J. Physiol. 265:G15-G20; Coleridge et al. (1973) Circ. Res. 23:87-97; Mifflin and Kunze (1982) Circ. Res. 51:241-249; and Schaurte et al. (2000) J. Cardiovasc Electrophysiol. 11:64-69. The full texts and disclosures of all the references listed above are hereby incorporated fully by reference.